Subject: Re: Hot complaints about YDL 2.1
From: Jake Feasel (anjf2@uaa.alaska.edu)
Date: Sun Oct 28 2001 - 16:22:55 MST
On 28 Oct 2001, Jake Feasel wrote:
> I just purchased 2.1. Much to my excitement, it arrived recently. I
> had been using 2.0, and I was fairly happy with it.
Then why did you upgrade if you were happy with it? As I've
mentioned before, this rampant tendency to upgrade "just
'cause" should stop.
Note the "fairly." Plus, I had done like you recommend below, and
installed the packages / src myself on 2.0. However, I find that a
distro usually sets it up better than I do - actually linking Mime
types, using packages, making kmenu entries, etc... stuff that I'm too
lazy to do usually. And I find that nuking and rebuilding keeps the
entropy that is Linux Desktops from taking over.
> However, it didn't try to save me when I made an incorrect choice for
my X
> configuration (color depth 32 instead of 24 - a no no on a TiBook)
Assuming you actually have valid reasons for upgrading, you
should upgrade only what you need. You can upgrade your
kernel, many RPMs, and X Windows all by yourself and under your
total control making sure to keep backups of everything. You
don't need a complete distribution upgrade to do any of these
things. (The only really tricky thing to upgrade is glibc.)
(When I am tweaking my X config, I make sure I am ssh'd into
the machine so in case I completely lock up my console, I can
still be on the machine to kill -9 processes or do a clean shut
down if necessary.)
Good Idea - except I didn't have networking, becuase the install didn't
set up my airport.
> Have they improved the power management for my TiBook, in that it goes
to
> "sleep" when I close the screen? Nope.
Although I agree the YDL installer should do a better job, you
really need to understand the distinction between the kernel,
third party software, and YDL which, except for things like the
installer itself and yup, is merely a bundling of OTHER
people's software, and therefore correspondingly not blame
those who are not responsible.
The "they" in your sentence can not refer to the folks who make
YDL: "they" have nothing to do with power management support,
or support for any other piece of hardware or aspect thereof.
The "they" is "the kernel authors," most of whom couldn't care
less about PPC, let alone power managment on a single laptop
from a company that only has 5% market share. Let's get real
here. The fact that anything at all works on Apple hardware,
let alone power management, is due to the efforts of a few
Linux PPC developers who I think I can count on one hand.
I was under the impression that Terra soft did some PPC kernel hacking.
Perhaps that's not true. Are you aware of this "sleep" feature in
kernel 2.4? I would have used that, but the 2.4 install failed. I also
thought that Terra soft made their business out of that 5% market share.
> What about the configuration / apps? It comes with a *really* old
version of
> AbiWord (0.7 - current is like 0.9.4).
So upgrade it yourself with a later PPC RPM (if it even exists)
or compile it from source yourself.
RPM doesn't exist (for PPC). So yes, I complied the source. By far not
my biggest complaint. Is this to be expected of an end-user though?
> It doesn't come with BlueFish, Quanta Plus, Nautilas (WTF!?!).
You're free to install those youself too; so stop your whining,
please.
Personally, what I want in a distro is a reasonable default
kernel (that I will later reconfigure myself) and doing
reasonable things with all the scripts and config files under
/etc. (Both Redhat and Mandrake do some REALLY bizarre things
there and I spend hours cleaning up their crap when I do Intel
Linux installs.)
I can install whatever other software I want myself. Many
software packages are already outdated by the time the GM CD is
pressed anyway.
True, but with such a new distro, modern packages should be bundled.
Note - Java doesn't even come standard. And the Java that comes on the
Tasty Treats CD isn't even sun's. You make good points though. Yes, I
will go and get all of the apps I need. I may have been spoiled by
Mandrake in this reguard. The biggest problems I had weren't the
packages though. The failure to install 2.4 and the hardware
disfunctions (sound, airport, power management) are my biggest headache.
Jake Fease
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